


inflatable girl

by eijanaika



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Forced Feminization, M/M, Manipulation, Misogyny, Past Child Abuse, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Waylon Sweetie I'm So Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:02:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eijanaika/pseuds/eijanaika
Summary: This one will be true where the others were not. This one will never betray him; Eddie knows it as well as he knows the unfailing drum of his own heart. This one will be perfect.





	inflatable girl

**Author's Note:**

> Lord help me, it’s almost 2020 and I’m back on my Outlast bullshit once again. 
> 
> Title is from [Heaven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCyycPjGal4) by I Monster. Listen to that to set The Mood. 
> 
> Anyway, without further ado: Happy Halloween to all you variantfuckers out there… hope you’re all having A Spooky One.

His beloved dies like just another whore; split open and wailing bloody on the operation table. Filthy, ugly obscene. It kills Eddie to see her like this, it really does, but there’s no use crying over spilled milk as his mother would say. Not when he has another wrapped up and expecting him.  
  
  
This one will be true where the others were not. This one will never betray him; Eddie knows it as well as he knows the unfailing drum of his own heart. This one will be perfect.  
  
  
The locker blurs and twists as he approaches it, dark shapes flickering in the corners of his eyes, as if he’s seeing the world through the lens of a projector; only someone has perverted the film, spliced horror into romance. It’s so hard to know what’s real anymore, except for _her._  
  
  
(—In fact, he thinks he might have met this bride once before, in a dream, a sign from the heaven’s themselves, like the angels who came down to Joseph. In it, she was encased in a glass egg, frozen in time, impregnate with love, awaiting him with open arms. It was not a pleasant dream; he remembers throwing himself against the glass, over and over, cold and unyielding, only to be torn away, his skin burning upon re-entry to the material world.  
  
  
No matter, he’s found her now. There’s no getting away from him this time.)  
  
  
His hands, usually so steady, shake as he opens the locker door, revealing his bride to be. She stares up at him, blinking; still woozy from the sleeping gas, struck mute with anticipation. She’s a striking beauty, this one, with sharp cheekbones, full lips, eyes like black river stones. Her hair is dark, shiny, but shorn short like a _man’s,_ or worse, like a _modern woman’s._ It makes Eddie’s lip curl, but hair grows back, so he stomachs his disgust. He’s nothing if not patient.   
  
  
This one will make a good mother, Eddie can tell, despite her slender frame, her narrow hips. The weaker sex always shows a remarkable strength in the birthing bed. His mother was a slight thing too, and look how he turned out.  
  
  
He offers his bride his hand, taking her by the wrist when she refuses him, marveling at the softness of her skin, the blue-green veins trembling beneath the surface. Slowly, gently, he goes to guide her out into the open, yet his beloved resists him, as they always do, shrinking back into the locker, eyes darting and wild.  
  
  
“S-stop,” she says, “please, Gluskin… you don’t have to do this.” She concentrates on him; _searching_ his face, he realizes, but for what exactly, he cannot say. “I’m not one of them, I’m not—”  
  
  
“Of course you’re not, you’re beautiful. None of them could even compare. And please, call me Eddie.”  
  
  
“Eddie,” she repeats, and he finds he adores the sound of his name in her mouth; the soft, breathy way she trembles over the syllables, as if speaking for the first time. None of the others have ever spoken to him beyond an incoherent, hysterical babbling—let alone pronounced his name so beautifully before he cut out their harlot’s tongues. “Eddie, please, I can’t…”  
  
  
“Of course you can, darling, you’re made for it.” He could curse this rotten world; filling his bride’s head with useless ideas, smothering out her true purpose. “A tiny bit of pain, and then we’ll be married. You can’t tell me it isn’t worth it.”  
  
  
His bride stills then, and the world stills with her, as if she’s the center of the universe, time slowing to a gut-shot crawl around them. It’s no trouble then to scoop her out of the locker, Eddie’s hand around her elbow, leading her up and onto the operating table. He takes hold of her foot, intending to tie it down (for her own safety, of course, only so she can’t hurt herself), but she pulls away, curling into herself like a kitten, face hidden in her arms.  
  
  
It’s unhelpful, but ultimately harmless, and Eddie allows his beloved her modesty, reaching instead for the knife tucked into his belt. The cutting of the clothes is a disturbing part of the ritual, both clinical and crude, like a medical examination, but it can’t be helped. They must do things perfectly, or not at all.  
  
  
(Besides, he can’t deny the sick thrill that awakens inside him when he presses the tip of the blade against the nape of her pale neck, the way it curls through his belly as he drags it down her back, splitting her filthy rags open around it, revealing the creamy, ripe flesh, and calling to him, urging him on, further, further, down, down, down, right there, there, THERE—)  
  
  
“What are you doing?” Eddie blinks, snapped back into reality by the hardness in his bride’s voice. “You’re not supposed to…” She shakes her head, empathetic. “You can’t see me like this. Not before the wedding.”  
  
  
“But I’m afraid there’s simply no other way. I could close my eyes, of course, but this is a delicate procedure, and I would never forgive myself if I hurt you because of it.”  
  
  
(_Unless you make me,_ goes unsaid. _Unless you have it coming,_ as well.)  
  
  
But his bride is insistent. “No, no” she says, climbing shakily to her knees, turning to hide the slit in her clothes. “This isn’t right. W-we should…. We should talk. Get to k-k-know each other first.”  
  
  
He laughs, although he knows it’s rude of him, he just can’t help it. “Why?”  
  
  
“Because… all your other women, all the ones before me, did you ever talk to _them?_"  
  
  
“Darling, they were nothing to me,” he says quickly, “disgusting swine, all of them,” but his bride quietens him with one shrewd look.  
  
  
“You didn’t _know_ them, did you? If you did, you’d know what they were—that they couldn’t love you, that they were incapable of it.” She spits out the words, but there’s no venom in them, only conviction, and Eddie admires her all the more for it. A good woman should know when to hold her tongue. “So let’s talk, Eddie.”  
  
  
“Talk about what?” he asks, mostly just to humor her, to butter her up so he can slide her clothes off of her without any unnecessary damage, but she must expect this because she skitters backwards, eyes fixed on the knife until he relents and tucks it back into his belt. Oh, the things he does for love.  
  
  
“Anything. It doesn’t matter. You could tell me a-about yourself… your interests, your hobbies, y-your family.” Eddie’s jaw clenches involuntarily, hard enough he hears a tendon _pop,_ and his bride goes chalk-white. He can almost see the gears grinding to a halt in her tiny head. A woman’s brain is a lot like that of a small animal’s, he finds, nervous and flighty, but there’s nowhere for her to flee to now, no escape in sight. He’s made sure of that. “No, no, not that, something else… I could…”  
  
  
“Enough.” He forces himself into patience, even as he feels a headache start to tighten around his skull. “There will be plenty of time to talk before the wedding—after we’ve fixed your vulgarities.”  
  
  
“But what’s the harm in waiting? Just… just a little bit.” She reaches for him, her thin fingers brushing against his knuckles, electricity crackling in its wake.  
  
  
Forwardness is an unattractive trait in a woman, bordering on whorishness, and Eddie lets his displeasure be known. He slaps her hand away, replacing one touch with another; his nails digging into the soft meat of her thigh.  
  
  
She yelps, jerking away like she’s been slapped, but Eddie doesn’t mind. A little bit of fear looks good on a woman, pales the complexion, widens the eyes, fattens the pupils. Her terror makes her beautiful, but this is nothing compared to what she’ll become on their wedding night, made divine when he purifies her from the inside out, bathing her in white, and then later, a virginal red.  
  
  
“It’s okay, darling.” He spreads a hand over her stomach, coaxing her down onto her back, acutely aware of the brittleness beneath— one hefty push and he could flatten her, squish her guts out of her mouth like toothpaste, although he never would. Not to her. She’s not that type of woman. “Just lie back and close your eyes. It’ll all be over before you know it.”  
  
  
His bride must be hard of hearing, however, because as soon as Eddie removes his hand she’s struggling back onto her elbows, legs twisted into a knot around her sex. Maybe, Eddie thinks, he’ll have to tie her down after all.  
  
  
“You like music, right?” She cocks her head, listening for the phantom hum of the radio. It’s too far away to hear, but Eddie can just as easily fill in the crooning in his head; _a good old fashioned girl with heart so true, one who loves nobody else but you._ “Ol…old music. I heard you singing before—it sounded so beautiful, you’re very talented. What song was it?”  
  
  
“_Classic_ music,” he corrects her. “It’s _I want a girl,_ have you heard of it?”  
  
  
The question is rhetorical; women should not be expected to have opinions on music, and on this front, she does not surprise him.  
  
  
“No matter, it’s from a different era, long before your time. A _better_ era,” he can’t help but add, although he has no way of knowing this for sure. It’s simply a gut feeling, or a desperate prayer; _things were better back then, and one day, they’ll be good again._  
  
  
“Oh y-yes.” She stares up at him through spider-web lashes. “Better. This—” she waves a hand at the ceiling and shudders, “—this wouldn’t have happened back then. It couldn’t have.”  
  
  
“No. No, it would not.”  
  
  
“See, Eddie?” His bride smiles—although, is it a trick of the light or does her happiness not reach her eyes, as flat and cloudy as dirty glassware—“We understand each other. I feel… it’s like I’ve known you my whole life.”  
  
  
She straightens into a sitting position before him, arms folded demurely in her lap, legs still crossed and hanging over the edge of the operating table; only an inch or two between them, so bold that Eddie almost takes a step back, would bash her brains out if he wasn’t so transfixed, so bewitched by her beauty.  
  
  
“You’re not like any man I’ve ever met.”  
  
  
“Have you known many men?” The words are sharpened knives, and they cut through her, leaving her bloodless. There’s a dark necklace of bruises around her throat—Eddie hadn’t noticed them before, but now they’re all he can look at; a black stain on her skin he can’t ever hope to scrub away.  
  
  
It would not do for his beloved to be a used woman. This is a terrible world, full of evil, lustful men, but Eve’s daughters must take responsibility for their tempting ways; for leading Adam astray; for sinking their teeth into paradise and ripping it in two.  
  
  
“No, no… you would—” she stutters, breaks into a delicate cough. “You’ll be my first.”  
  
  
He scans her face, searching for any signs of trickery or womanly deception, but finds nothing. Possibly, she is too stupid to even consider deceiving him. She does have a stricken, doe-eyed look to her, Eddie observes, as if fresh from the womb, still wobbly at the knees.  
  
  
“Good,” he says, “that’s good. I’ll ask you not to talk of any other men around me. I’m a jealous man, darling, I can’t help it. I just love you so much.”  
  
  
“Yes, of course.” She wets her lips, her spittle painting them a glossy cherry-red in the light. “_Darling._”  
  
  
Silence settles between them, and they regard each other—him warily, her with palpable nerves. Eddie supposes there’s some sense to her words; there’s a voice in his head that agrees with her at least, authoritative and old-timey paternal; _a good woman keeps you honest, son,_ and it’s true, she does.  
  
  
Yes, he decides, he can wait, because she’s worth waiting for. He wants to savor her, preserve her in amber, protected and ageless, never hurt or hurting.  
  
  
“Do you have a dress already? A wedding dress, I mean. I thought I saw some when I was coming to find you.”  
  
  
Her words knock him out of orbit, and it takes a few seconds to find his voice again. “Yes,” he says automatically, his brain stuck on _coming to find you,_ replaying it over and over. She came to him in a dream, and now in the waking world; a lure, shimmering into the black sea, reeling him into her. “But those were just for practice. They’re not good enough for you, my love. There’s a better one, but I’m afraid I left it back at the altar.”  
  
  
“Could you show it to me? Please, it won’t take long.” Timid fingers lace their way around his, the spider-silk softness of her skin making Eddie’s heart thump painfully in his chest. “I won’t run away, I promise.”  
  
  
She glances down at her foot and Eddie follows her gaze. There’s a dark crust of blood around her ankle, likely earned when she slipped and fell down the elevator shaft before. A clumsy woman, his bride is. Even if she were to run from him, she wouldn’t get very far.  
  
  
Eddie tries and fails to conjure up a reason to deny her. It’s not like any of the others ever took an interest in the wedding arrangements, the hard-tongued harpies that they were. Just another reason why she’s the one; _love light in her eye,_ as the song would say. It must be fate, written in the stars, sharp and bright across an aching sky. How did it take him so long to finally see it?  
  
  
It’s pitch-black outside, but Eddie’s eyes are bright, and he has no problem leading his bride through the garden and into the chapel, the grass crunching beneath her bare feet as she hobbles to keep up with him.  
  
  
Down the rows of make-shift pews, they approach the altar, and she lets out a soft _oh!_ as she catches sight of the wedding gown strung up there. It's a simple, modest design; not nearly good enough for her, but the best Eddie could do, given the circumstances.  
  
  
“My god, this is…” She spins on her good heel to face him, excitement buzzing off of her in waves. “Could I try it on? If that’s… if it’s okay with you. I just want to make sure it fits. Everything has to be perfect, you know?” She leans towards him, and Eddie’s eyes drop to the longing column of her neck, china-white and prickled with gooseflesh. “I’ve been dreaming about this day forever.”  
  
  
How funny she should say that. So has he.  
  
  
Really, how could he refuse her? The gentler sex needs a firm, white-knuckled hand to set them straight, yes, but there is time for indulgences too; a time for roses and candies and ballads of undying love. Eddie’s always been the chivalrous type; rushing to open the door, strong arm around the waist, a light in the darkness. _Soft-hearted,_ some might say, _a fool in love,_ but they’d be unromantic fiends, and probably not very happy. Not like him.  
  
  
There’s a small room off to the side of the chapel, and Eddie permits her to change there, watching the shadowy curves of her body through the frosted glass window as she struggles with the gown. At one point she bends at the waist, head hung between her knees and makes a noise halfway between a sob and a retch that crawls out of her throat like a spider, then straightens, smoothing down her hair like nothing was the matter.  
  
  
Surely it’s only pre-wedding jitters, Eddie reassures himself, nothing to worry about. After all, he feels them too.  
  
  
When she finally opens the door it takes every bit of his strength not to throw her down and take her right then and there, traditions be damned. It’s not a perfect fit; the gown pinches around the shoulders, hanging loose around the waist, and she stands as if she’s never worn a dress in her life, but it doesn’t matter. Eddie can fill in the details, make up for her imperfections, especially with the veil flipped over her face, hiding the unsightly bulge in her throat, the smattering of fine hairs above her lip. She is flat-chested, Eddie notices, like a little girl, the gown more baptismal than bridal on her, but secretly he prefers this. It’s proof of her modest innocence; never tempting, never wanting, and the thought that he will be the one to turn her from child to woman is almost too much to bear.  
  
  
“You look beautiful,” he says, and for the first time in his life, he truly means it. “You’re almost ready for our wedding. All that’s left to do is remove the vulgarities, and then you’ll be perfect.”  
  
  
He takes her by the elbow, meaning to steer her back to the operating room, but she roots her heels into the ground, pulling away from him.  
  
  
“You can’t. We’re… we’re already here, why not just marry me now. Please, you’ve already seen me in my dress, it’ll be bad luck otherwise, we have to do it now or it’ll all be ruined.”  
  
  
“I know, but I have to.” Eddie’s voice is slow and patient, as if calming a frightened animal; coaxing it to him, just close enough to reach out and wring its neck. “We have to do it properly, if we’re to—”  
  
  
His bride mutates to a white blur as she rushes towards him, colliding her shaking body against his, arms around his neck in a crude parody of a lover’s embrace, clogging his nostrils with her scent, burnt hair and sepsis, setting his brain alight. He feels her parted lips against his cheek, rough through the mesh veil, mouthing along his jawline, panting hot. Desperate.  
  
  
This is not right. His beloved would never do this. It’s too revolting to even comprehend, so he won’t.  
  
  
Eddie takes a deep breath. Winds back his fist, sends it straight into his bride’s jaw, her teeth clinking together like bullet through bone. She recoils bodily, crumpling into a heap on the floor, veil flipped back to reveal her bruised mouth, eyes welling with tears.  
  
  
“_Eddie,_” she whispers, and now he’s the one shrinking away, a cold sweat-slime prickling across his hairline. His chest aches as if she’s shoved an ice pick through his it, over and over, tenderized his heart into pulp, traumatized the surrounding muscle. He feels his mother’s hands on him, her lacquered fingernails scraping at his cheeks, hears her voice, cloying, pleading, thick like honey, drowning him in it:  
  
  
_Eddie, Eddie, why would you say something like that, your father is a good man, you know that, Eddie, baby, don’t cry, what’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this to me, Eddie?_  
  
  
He closes his eyes, centers himself. The sins of his mother are not the sins of his bride; for she is pure, untainted by the evils of the modern world. Sometimes it is so hard to remember this, but he must. For her. For their love, and soon, their children.  
  
  
“I’m sorry, darling, I really am, but you have to understand. We have to do things the right way, or why do them at all?”  
  
  
“…I understand.” Blood foams between her teeth as she talks, reminding Eddie of strawberry jam on bread. Slowly, she climbs to her feet, body swaying from side to side, eyes choked full with a bleak recognition. “They hurt you, didn’t they?” Her stare is nuclear, penetrating his brain, untangling the black scribble of his thoughts. “You don’t have to tell me, I know. They hurt me too.”  
  
  
Each word bends time and space to its will, the air around them tinged a hazy fuchsia, blinding at the edges, obliterating the outside world, and it casts her in an ethereal glow; like an angel, a goddess, Venus emerging fully-born from her shell, the paragon of the perfect woman.  
  
  
“It’s not your fault, Eddie, it’s Murkoff, they did this to us, _it’s not your fault,_” says his angelgoddessbride, and she’s barely making sense but it doesn’t matter, he can feel her words in his gnawing heart, so stuffed full of love it’s hard to even breathe, his forgiveness a soft white heat flooding out of him, incandescent in awe of her startling perfection.  
  
  
“Marry me.” The floor is hard on his bones as he drops to one knee, but Eddie hardly feels it. “Make me the man I know I can be, please, love, I’ll do anything—”  
  
  
“We are married,” she whispers, “don’t you remember? We said the vows. God heard us. He hears us now, he knows what’s in our hearts, he doesn’t need the ceremony. I’m already yours, I’ve always been yours,” and she is, and she has. How could he ever have forgotten it?  
  
  
He gathers his wife up in his arms, careful not to rip her dress as he pulls her tight against him. She’s heavier than she looks, but it’s no matter to Eddie—if anything he’s glad that she’s made of sturdier stuff, won’t scream and shatter at the slightest touch like the others. He leans his face towards hers and after a few seconds she rises to meet him. Her lips are soft like rabbit fur, and he tastes her blood on his tongue, devouring her soft whimpers, his cock heavy in his trousers, painful with intent, like a curled fist, or a loaded gun.  
  
  
It’s a miracle then that they make it to the marital bed in one piece, every step a marathon in his lovesick mania, and he lowers her gently down onto her back, spread out like a divine feast, one just for him.  
  
  
The illusion buckles somewhat when his wife rolls onto her stomach, face hidden in the mattress. Body stiff, as if this is her duty, her chore, rather than something she’s been dreaming of.  
  
  
“Now, now. Let me see your face.” With all the patience of a saint, the ones who starve themselves for God, Eddie rearranges her onto her back, only for her to immediately turn over again as soon as he withdraws his hands.  
  
  
This is not what Eddie wants, what he’s been fantasizing of all these years. Is it so wrong to want to gaze into his darling’s eyes as he deflowers her, to feel her lips on his? He wants to make love to her, for crying out loud, not take her from behind like a dog.  
  
  
Vision darkening, he yanks up her dress, intending to lovingly correct her, but his breath sticks to his throat at the sight of her thighs, unblemished and baby-soft, giving way to the teasing curve of her buttocks, hidden beneath ugly cotton panties. If she were just some common whore, Eddie would gut her right there for her disobedience, but she is his wife now. He can forgive her sudden shyness, unthaw her frigid modesty with his warmth, night after night.   
  
  
Truthfully, he’s too frenzied to think straight anymore. There’s a fever in his blood, burning him up, utterly uncaring about what is proper or gentlemanly. He’s been denied so long, locked up in hell, and now that he’s free and she’s here, who could blame him? Who could deny him what he wants, least of all her?  
  
  
There’s a nervous stutter in his fingers as he pulls off her panties and takes himself in hand, crawling three-legged towards her. His wife gasps, hissing something that sounds a lot like _no, wait, stop,_ but it’s so unlike her that Eddie ignores it entirely.  
  
  
He drives himself between her legs unseeing, blinded by love, pushing at the first opening he finds there. The skin yields to him, and he sinks wholeheartedly into a blessed tight heat, his wife screaming beneath him as if she’s been torn in half.   
  
  
“I’m sorry, darling,” he says through gritted teeth, “just bear with me, there’s nothing I can do about the pain.”  
  
  
Pain is an undeniable part of the ceremony; the seal of their union, their sacrifice, their rebirth as man and wife. If Eddie could shoulder it all for her, he would, God would he, but he can’t. A woman’s burden is to suffer. If she’s the woman Eddie thinks she is, she’ll know how to do it well.  
  
  
For now, however, the concept seems lost on her—she writhes around his cock, shrieking like a dying cat, mindless with pain, so Eddie has to collapse his full weight onto her, hook his chin over shoulder just to hold her down until she’s not trying to crawl away from him anymore, clawing and clenching at the mattress, anchoring herself beneath him.   
  
  
He rocks into her soft hole, her slit, her _cunt_—such a vulgar word, and yet she is a vulgar woman, lewd and heavenly at the same time; a terrifying contradiction, too much for poor Eddie to handle.  
  
  
“Slut,” he says without thinking, but there’s no small part of him that means it. She’ll have to forgive him for this, just as he’ll have to forgive her for bringing out the worst in him. “You want this, don’t you? You—”  
  
  
_Whore,_ but the word collapses into a breathless howl as he slips further inside her, her insides soft and gooey, like liquid candy. He splays a hand over the small of her back, feeling her bones crack as he presses her into the mattress, the fabric of her dress silky-slippery against his palm. His other hand roams her body, twisting the soft skin of her thighs, her hips, her ass (what about her makes him think such cruel thoughts? She’s ruined him already), leaving red fingerprints behind, which shift and darken into Rorschach blots; coded messages for him to decipher.  
  
  
“Good girl, you’re a good girl, aren’t you? You love me, don’t you, darling? Only me.”  
  
  
“Lisa, I’m sorry,” she sobs (who is Lisa, Eddie wonders vaguely; perhaps a mother, or a favorite sister), and then she’s talking to him, she must be, the words spilling from her quivering mouth, “I love you, I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry, I love you.”  
  
  
It’s her words that do it. Eddie’s always been a romantic at heart. There’s something wild buzzing up and down the knots of his spine, splitting him open, and he flips her over, hands on her neck to keep her still. She cups a hand over her mound, but Eddie’s not looking there, only at her face, into her eyes, pupils blown to hell, swollen with love for him, only him, because she is his—  
  
  
_darling, sweetheart, angel, baby girl, baby girl, baby girl, light of my life, fire of my loins, mother to my child_  
  
  
**—wife;** the thought scratching a feral itch in his brain and he comes, full-bodied, vision whiting out, fingers spasming around her neck.  
  
  
His orgasm consumes him fully, erasing his carcinogenic cells, replacing them with healthy ones, and he feels like a new man, the man he always knew he could be, his past rewritten, the future sprawling out before him, yolk-yellow, as bright as the sun itself, his wife reflected brilliantly in it, silhouetted in gems of light, sea glass against white sand.   
  
  
He collapses down beside her, body sluggish with satisfaction, a pleasant haze weighing his head down. In the background he can hear her tugging down her dress, preserving her modesty, but Eddie can’t help but imagine what must lie beneath; the pinkish stain pooling out between her legs, marking his claim.  
  
  
She stiffens as he lays a hand on her stomach, rubbing the pad of his thumb back and forth across her bellybutton. Is he only imagining the slight arch there, her body swelling up with his seed? He doesn’t think so.  
  
  
He looks up at his wife for confirmation, only to be met with a look of such revulsion that it knocks the breath from him and then she’s crying; not delicate tears of joy but loud, wracking sobs that crackle out of her throat.  
  
  
“It’s okay,” he coos, as if soothing a baby (his baby, the one inside her, it must be, it must be), “don’t cry. I love you, darling. I’ll love you forever.”  
  
  
“Forever,” she says, spitting out the word like it’s a mouthful of glass. Like it’s the most horrible word in the world.


End file.
